The Lost Seas

Templars

Kalak’s templars were feared throughout Tyr for their authority and for the magical power they received from Kalak. Around two-thirds of them had sworn pacts that deepened their magical relationship with the sorcerer-king (in game terms, they were warlocks with the “sorcerer-king pact” class feature), while many others were other sorts of defilers or psionicists or even (especially in the military) warlords and warriors.

The templars of Tyr wore black cassocks to signify their devotion to Kalak and occupied all administrative positions of power in Tyrian society. All significant command positions in the Tyrian Guard were held by templars (as is the case in the armies of the other sorcerer-kings as well). Residing in the Golden City, the templars lived a life incomparable to the common folk’s, and were broadly resented for their power and for the role they played in sustaining Kalak’s tyranny.

Kalak’s templars after the assassination
When Kalak was assassinated, the templars suddenly found that all magical power derived from Kalak had evaporated. They surely would have been summarily killed to a man had Tithian not been part of the assassination plot; when elevated to king, Tithian ordered the templars to swear allegiance to him and made use of their connections and skills to help keep the city under control and maintain the delivery of basic services in the aftermath of the revolution. Almost two-thirds of the templars took Tithian up on his offer.

Nonetheless, many templars did die at the hands of angry crowds or assassins in the night taking revenge for some past atrocity. The templar officers of the Guard Afield, for example, were killed by their own men in the forts and outposts across the Tyr region. The sole exception was the command of Strategos Haamdan, at Fort Iron. Haamdan’s power derived mostly from his mastery of the Way, not from Kalak (he was a powerful ardent) as did his hand-picked psionic templar lieutenants. Retaining their power and authority, Haamdan marched his command (around 300 men and a handful of templars) to Urik and defected.

The shift to civil administratorship
The bulk of the templars, however, found themselves completely powerless. While some began their laborious studies over again, seeking other beings to strike pacts with for power, most resigned themselves to shifting into the new roles that templars were now expected to fill: civil servants and administrators in the new Tyrian society. Many templars (or their underlings) had already carried out these duties, and so it was not difficult to rebuild the networks of bureaucracy needed to run Tyr. Because becoming a templar no longer required years of arduous magical study culminating in a dark magical oath, many former non-templar underlings were recruited to join the ranks of the templars; in the year since Kalak’s assassination, the ranks of the templars have swelled tremendously (fortunately, as they had shrunk precipitously after Kalak’s assassination as templars fled the life or were killed), as many citizens who had somehow learned to read in their lives found that joining the templars might be a nice route to a comfortable life. Former templars who no longer filled the role of civil bureaucrats cast off their robes and pursued their new careers free of the label “templar” (for example, the head of the Tyrian Guard, Strategos Gevello, was a former high templar who is now considered simply a high-ranking member of the military).

The True
A small portion of Kalak’s templars refused to swear allegiance to King Tithian, maintaining their loyalty to Kalak—some out of a sense of duty, some out of simple hatred of Tithian, and some out of a genuine belief that somehow Kalak would cheat death and return. Tithian dealt harshly with these holdouts, throwing them into Tyr’s dungeons and executing several who were especially troublesome (indeed, those chosen for execution had a curious overlap with templars who had been rivals to Tithian in the old days). These holdouts are known as "_ The True_" and even now some remain locked in the deepest reaches of the dungeons; citizens of Tyr whisper that some still walk free, a cult worshiping the memory of their slain sorcerer-king and working toward vengeance against his killers…or even his return?